The present disclosure relates to information management and more particularly to using a federated ontology as an index to enterprise knowledge.
In developing and manufacturing complex products, a large number of parties, groups, and business units in an enterprise may be involved, requiring differing levels of access to vast quantities of data. For example, an automobile manufacturer may manufacture or purchase thousands of different parts in support of building one or more vehicle models. The parties, groups, and business units involved in manufacturing a complex product often desire customized views to data but lack the ability to access each other's databases to extract useful knowledge stored therein. Due to the sheer volume of data and specific requirements for the primary users of the data, many businesses have developed separate customized solutions of limited scale to support the needs of a specific class of user. For example, an engineering group may store and access data related to the design and development cycle of a particular part or type of part incorporated into another product, e.g., a vacuum hose for vehicle. Other groups, such as purchasing, marketing, and service, may have access to information related to a variety of parts, particular vehicles, or supplier data that could be useful to other groups for numerous applications.
An example application where it would be useful to have access to a wide array of data sources is in servicing warranty claims. A service group may log customer issues and the service provided to customers in the field. It would be beneficial for part failures on particular products to be traced back to a supplier or a design group to rapidly isolate the root cause and allocate warranty costs. However, current enterprise systems with numerous data repositories spread over geographically diverse locations and organized without a standardized approach present a substantial challenge in tracing through the data to extract useful information (e.g., identifying a particular supplier of a part in a particular vehicle). The more complex a product, combined with the use of multiple suppliers for a given part within a product, yields greater data integration challenges. Additionally, an enterprise that relies upon a number of legacy systems may find it infeasible to convert the systems into a common format, necessitating the continued use and maintenance of multiple disparate systems.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a federated ontology index to enterprise knowledge.